1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for providing search engines and databases of documents.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Conventionally, various systems have existed for receiving search queries and providing search results. Conventional databases are collections of data, which may be queried using, natural language or Boolean search terms, to find results meeting the query.
Conventional databases deliver search results in a list form, without providing the user with automatic quantitative analysis of how searched documents relate to each other or how activity levels among documents compare with each other across subject matter areas.
Internet search engines allow a user to search vast hyperlinked data on the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, not all data is accessible by such search engines. Also, conventionally, data may be too vast in a particular area to provide useful results to a user performing a search.
Metadata is data about data. Metatags are one way of identifying data characteristics about data.
Semantic search uses semantics, the science of meaning of language, in order to obtain highly relevant search results. Semantic search seeks to improve search accuracy by understanding an intent of a searcher and contextual meaning of terms as the terms appear in a searchable dataspace in order to generate more relevant search results. Semantic search permits dynamic and efficient processes for identifying where key phrases exist within documents, but conventional semantic search fails to provide sufficient quantitative or qualitative analysis of results in many domains. For example, conventionally, public policy processes are perceived as being non-quantifiable.
What is needed is an improved system that overcomes shortcomings of conventional text-based search systems.